“Splitting the farm bill is the wrong approach,” according to Dottie Rosenbaum, a Senior Policy Analyst specializing in food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It would not only end the long-standing, bipartisan practice of bringing together supporters of agriculture and food assistance programs to produce more sound policy,” she told ThinkProgress, “but it has the potential to force cuts to food assistance even deeper and more harmful than those already rejected by the House.”

Those cuts – $20.5 billion over a decade, largely from changes to eligibility rules that would kick 2 million poor Americans off the food aid rolls – meant the House’s original farm bill faced a narrow path to passage. Many Democrats were reportedly ready to hold their noses on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cuts and support the full package. ButRepublican leaders killed the bill by endorsing a last-minute amendment they knew Democrats couldn’t tolerate. After the bill failed, with dozens of Republicans who’d voted for the amendment that chased Democrats away still opposing the final vote, House leaders opted not to return to a version of the bill that could pass. Instead, they began exploring splitting the bill up.

“Splitting the Farm Bill is an act of political gamesmanship that leaves SNAP vulnerable to attack or outright neglect from Congress,” said Joy Moses, Senior Policy Analyst for the Center for American Progress’ Poverty and Prosperity Program. An action alert sent Tuesday night from the Food Research and Action Center, the national anti-hunger advocacy group that sponsors the “SNAP Challenge,” agreed that the plan “seems to be one more attempt to harm SNAP.”